Dainis Graveris

Role: Owner & Founder of Awesome 1WD

Dainis Graveris is 23 years old blogger and designer, founder of 1stWebDesigner, now more silently managing everything behind the scenes. He usually hangs out in Twitter tweeting design related links and chatting with people. If you have any questions or feedback that's the best place to start! Cheers!

20 Visually Beautiful Firefox 3.0 Themes

Posted in , , 1698 days ago • Written by 18 Comments

If You use browser as much as I do, You’ll find times, when the old, standard Firefox design will feel odd, too usual..You’ll want something fresh. I got this feeling, so I wanted to share with You this great list with 20 visually beautiful and clean designed themes to try out. I checked everyone of these, so I know there are no problems and You can use them with no worries. And also remember there are a lot more included in those themes – You can’t really judge them only from screenshots – many little details gives each theme lovely and complete look for example – loading bars, mouse hover effects, scrolling bars etc., so just try them out and choose Your own theme that fits Your needs the best.

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40 Really Stunning HDR Car Photos, Resources And Tutorials

Posted in , , , 1699 days ago • Written by 24 Comments

HDR stands for  High Dynamic Range or HDRI – High Dynamic Range Imaging. This method was developed to produce a high dynamic range image from several different photographs ( usually three – with high exposure, low exposure and standard exposure) and  usually merging them in Adobe Photoshop or any other image processing software for tone-mapping. HDR is becoming more and more popular with its stunning magical and surreal effects.

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30 Free Stock Photo Sites: Ultimate Collection

Posted in 1700 days ago • Written by 49 Comments

Huh, I know there are maybe even too many articles about places, where to search for photos and images, but those articles were usually very old, many sites do not work anymore and that kind of stuff. So my goal was to create ultimate collection with the best places where to search for and get nice quality images. I think every site of this list is worth checking out, although in most cases with sxc.hu site alone is enough.

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Learn How To Master Your Typing Skills: 9 Resources

Posted in , , 1704 days ago • Written by 9 Comments

This article is not really design related, but if Your job demands You to work with computer, then I am sure You will evaluate this information and sites. I listed all of the resources in order to let You check You typing speed, read the basics and then get Your hands dirty ( well just literally) through many exercises, lessons and different typing games. Just don’t give up, train regularly to get results. You can even compete with other typers to find out how good are You comparing to others! Good luck!

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Amazing Illustrator 3D Effects And PS Brush Creation

Posted in , 1705 days ago • Written by 14 Comments

Adobe Illustrator is very powerful tool in the right hands, especially in creating nice 3D effects in the very fast time, later You can easily define those effects as photoshop brushes for later use. Enjoy this tutorial and follow with me to those steps – I will show and give You different ideas how You can use the same technique and get out amazing effects.

At first I will show You technique, how to create effects and after that, I’ll show You my ideas and different ways how to implement them.

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Plan Your Daily Schedule: Useful Resources

Posted in , , 1707 days ago • Written by 10 Comments

At first I thought to create another list article, but there are no need for list, just pick  so I just picked few You must know.

So why You need to plan schedule? In business world and workflow there are many things You must remember,  and I struggled to remember everything and notes always can disappear, but online scheduler is always handy. I am reviewing the most useful online resources – Google Calendar, FireFox add-ons, Mozilla Thunderbird scheduler, to help You organize works.

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Easy Brush Text Nature Effect: Tutorial

Posted in , 1708 days ago • Written by 14 Comments

Today we will learn how to use text layer letters as paths to create amazing effects. You can use this trick in many different ways, just changing brushes and brush options. Also we will learn how to use pen tool again together with brush tool and change different options. I tried to write everything pretty detailed, so everybody could understand and also added *.psd version for everybody to check out, if something in Your work is wrong. Check finished result on the bottom of this page and good luck completing this tutorial! So join with me to  these 10 simple steps!

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3D Dreamy Scene On The Sky: Tutorial

Posted in , 1709 days ago • Written by 17 Comments

Ok, it’s time for new tutorial. I wanted to create dreamy scene in the sky, learning different effects through all tutorial. We will use Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and cloud stock image. Again we will use 3D effects to get the job done. And yes, if You can use, Xara 3D for this step – it will get a lot better results then using simple Illustrator’s Bevel&Extrude options. If You don’t know what Xara is , check out this review and tutorial using XARA 3D to get cool 3D effect. Let’s begin!

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30 Useful Sites Where To Submit Your Tutorials

Posted in , 1713 days ago • Written by 36 Comments

As I am starting to write design related tutorials, I wanted to find out all the possible places, where I can submit and publish them, because it is hard to get publicity if people don’t know about Your site and articles. It doesn’t matter what’s Your reason creating  tutorials, but traffic and publicity always helps to reach Your goals.

Anyway..here comes the list with tutorial submission sites, where I think it’s worth to submit, so You can open Your own traffic sources, get new users, subscribers and mainly publicity.

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15 Useful Color Mixers For Effective Designing

Posted in , , 1714 days ago • Written by 11 Comments

I wanted to create this list, because there are times when I struggle choosing my design colors -  for me it’s not always easy task to just play with the colors and choose the right ones – of course, there are few favorite colors for everybody, but finding new great color combinations are not so easy task. That’s why there a lot of helpful resources to ease this task,  and I am here to show You those!

Hopefully this will help You to create new designs and the process will become a little easier.

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